L. Modesitt - Imager’s Battalion

“They’ll keep their mounted forces back.”

“That’s another question. How many mounted battalions do they have? According to what I’ve studied and what the marshal has conveyed to Commander Skarpa, the Bovarians have far more foot soldiers, as many as half their forces, if not more. I wouldn’t be surprised if they lost a great portion of their cavalry at Ferravyl.”

“All those foot types seem odd to me,” murmured Lhastyn.

“We’re the odd ones,” replied Quaeryt. “Most rulers have armies with far greater proportions of foot troopers. It’s less costly, and the logistics are simpler.” He wasn’t about to explain the circumstances of history and geography that had led to the Telaryn reliance on mounted troops.

For the next half quint, Lhastyn sketched and Quaeryt studied. Then, Quaeryt noted some flag waving, and before long a trooper hurried from a trench partway up the slope and began to run uphill across the grass that bore a myriad of recent gouges.

“I think we, or the company, have been noticed,” said Quaeryt.

“We’ll see if they send someone down to chase us off,” said Lhastyn cheerfully.

“What are your orders in that event?” asked Quaeryt.

“To get as much information as possible and to avoid unnecessary losses.”

“Have you finished sketching things out?”

“I’m close.”

“As soon as you finish, it might be a good idea for us to withdraw.” Quaeryt glanced at the Bovarian defenses again.

“I won’t be that long.” Lhastyn kept sketching. “I want to get this right.”

Before that long, while Lhastyn was still sketching, Quaeryt heard a sound like drumming, but lower. “Horses! That sounds like more than a company.”

“Time for us to go.” Lhastyn folded his papers and slipped them inside his tunic, then turned his mount.

Quaeryt glanced back as they rode toward third company. So did Lhastyn. The column of riders pouring over the rise in the road above and to the north of the revetments looked to be far more than a company, possibly even a battalion.

“You lead the company back,” said Quaeryt. “Undercaptain Shaelyt and I will ride with the rear.”

“Sir?”

“We can create some delays.”

“But, sir-”

“Go!” snapped Quaeryt. “Now!” As he neared Shaelyt, he angled the mare so that he was riding almost stirrup to stirrup with the undercaptain. “We have a job to do.”

“Yes, sir.”

“When we get just past the narrow part of the road up ahead at the end of the flat, when it starts to rise, we’re going to stop for a moment. I want you to image smoke across the road where it’s the narrowest. It doesn’t have to be acrid, but make it as thick as you can.”

“Yes, sir. Won’t they ride through it?”

“I’m certain that they will.”

After they passed the narrow point at the bottom of the slope heading eastward to the Telaryn encampment and had ridden another fifty yards or so, Quaeryt reined up and turned the mare. As he did so, he raised a concealment shield to cover just him and Shaelyt. “Wait. Don’t image the smoke until I tell you to, and if you can, I’d like you to image it as if it were a fog drifting out of the forest.”

“Yes, sir. I think I can do that.”

Quaeryt continued to watch as the Bovarian column thundered toward them.

“They don’t see us, do they?” asked Shaelyt.

“No. It’s another kind of shield.”

When the Bovarians were roughly a hundred yards from the narrow spot in the road, Quaeryt said, “Start imaging now.”

Shaelyt’s smoky fog appeared and began to drift quickly across the road, but the pursuing Bovarians did not slow down. Quaeryt hadn’t thought they would, not when they could see third company riding up the long slope, with no other forces around.

Quaeryt waited until the Bovarians were almost upon the smoke, then concentrated, first on creating an image of the forest stretching across the road behind the thick smoke that Shaelyt had imaged across, and then building a solid shield across the road and the shoulder, from the edge of the forest on the south to the heavier chest-high undergrowth on the north side of the river road. He anchored the shields to the ground itself and waited.

In moments, he felt the impact on his shields, shivering him despite the anchoring. He watched as close to an entire squad piled into the unseen barrier, with horses screaming and men yelling. Flashes of light flared across his eyes, and he had to squint to see clearly.

“Time for us to go, Shaelyt.” Quaeryt turned the mare, noting that the undercaptain did so immediately as well.

Still holding the shields and the forest image, Quaeryt glanced back over his shoulder, but the Bovarians were more concerned about their casualties than in further pursuit. He dropped the image and the shield barrier, but continued to hold the small concealment shield.

They rode for several moments before Shaelyt asked, “Sir … why didn’t you image stone trees or something like that?”

“Because I not only wanted to stop them, I wanted them surprised and confused, and I’m hoping that when the survivors report back that will create doubts and concerns. If they found stone trees, they’d immediately suspect imagers. This way…” Quaeryt shrugged. “When someone can’t explain something, that’s always to our advantage.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

Quaeryt glanced back again, but the Bovarians were still not pursuing. “We need to catch up to the company before Captain Lhastyn gets too worried that he’s lost a subcommander.”

As he looked ahead, he could see that fourth squad was waiting near the top of the next rise. He found himself swaying slightly in the saddle. Clearly, he hadn’t recovered as fully as he thought he had from dealing with the musketeers. Or … there wasn’t a source of heat to defray the cost on you … Not one you wanted to use …

“Sir…”

“I’ll be all right…” In a while. Quaeryt reached for the bottle of watered lager. That would help.

As he and Shaelyt continued to ride away from the confused mass of Bovarian men and mounts, something else nagged at him, something he’d noted, something that was so obvious, yet couldn’t remember at the moment. Quaeryt shook his head, hoping it would come to him while it still mattered.

By the time Quaeryt and Shaelyt returned to the hamlet serving as their base, it was still slightly more than a glass before midday. Captain Lhastyn hadn’t even asked about how they had halted the pursuing Bovarians … and that bothered Quaeryt in a different way.

The last thing we need is junior officers-or senior officers-expecting imagers to come up with near-impossible ways of dealing with the Bovarians. Except he realized that the more successful he and the imagers were and the more word passed through the companies, the greater the expectations would be.

Quaeryt reined up just short of the tie line that held the other imagers’ mounts, then dismounted, rather gingerly, and unsaddled the mare. Then he turned to Shaelyt.

“If you’d give Voltyr a hand … I’m going to meet with Commander Skarpa.”

“Yes, sir.”

Quaeryt nodded, then walked back to the cot where Skarpa was talking to Captain Lhastyn and asking questions about the sketches the captain was explaining. He eased up the steps and onto the covered porch, but stood back and let the captain continue his explanations.

“… could hold more than four regiments … sent a battalion of cavalry after us … Subcommander Quaeryt’s imager was able to create a diversion that halted them … suggests that they also have a large number of cavalry companies…”